l’e ^Portland © bseruer________ ______________ Au&ust 31 ■2005 Page A4 Opinion articles do not necessarily reflect or represent the views o f The Portland Observer O pinion Reward, Don’t V o O R S o ti V>ÍEt> FoR. THREE f io p t e . e 'r w f ; RESTAR PLUS, a ® PREMIUM. Demote Official Shedding light on racial profiling B ruce S. G ordon The Justice D epartm ent should support, not demote, the Bureau of Justice Statistics di rector who refused to downplay data that confirms racial pro filing of African American and Latino drivers. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez should investigate and intervene in this case. Here is a public official who at tempted to shed light on impor tant statistics that support ear lier NAACP findings which show black and Latino drivers are searched by law enforce ment nearly four times as of ten as white drivers. by AT > American Dream Turning to Fantasy mid-income workers put in longer hours, deal with long commutes or cut down on basic necessities so they can afford housing. A ccording to the C enter for Econom ic and Policy Research, even those that live in w hat is by J udge G reg M athis A new report by the Center for considered a m oderately priced Housing Policy finds most Ameri com m unity pay a disproportion cans don’t make enough money to ate portion o f their incom e for achieve the American dream of housing, more ’han the recom mended 30-percent. owning their own home. In the past 18 months, the me dian home price rose 20-percent to $225,000. However, during that same period, salaries for some of our most important professions stayed the sam e or rose only slightly, falling short of the $71,000 annual income needed to qualify to purchase a $225,000 home; this number is based on a down pay ment o f 10 percent. At an early age, most Americans are taught that hard work will even tually pay off in the form of a secure One goal of public policy has career, stable income and an all around comfortable life style. There long been to increase the national is a huge gap between this force- rate of homeownership. Any legis fed dream and the reality of living in lator worth their salt knows that a a society that is pricing out many of resident that owns their home has a vested interest in the community. its workers. Affordable housing is key to the As such, policies such as tax-de strength of America’s communi ductible mortgage interest and the ties. Where there is none, local creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie governments fight to manage over Mac, organizations that provide crowding, employers struggle to alternative mortgage options for have expanded recruit and retain personnel, low- to b u y e rs, High prices put houses out of reach for many ST homeownership over the last sev eral d ecad es. T his grow th in homeownership has proven ben eficial for millions of Americans, and provides a way to secure qual ity housing and a method to accu mulate wealth for retirement and beyond. A few years ago. President Bush committed his Administration to ensuring no American is left out in the cold when it comes to home Foundations can play a role by funding housing developm ents specifically created for the low- to moderate-income worker and by researching the effects these de velopments have on the commu nity at large. With this data, legis lators can identify best practices and create even more housing op tions. Creativity and a commitment to the working class are necessary to Creativity and a commitment to the working class are necessary to close * ^ t h e gap between the American dream the reality of flat-lining salaries and skyrocketing home prices. ownership. If he and the presidents that follow him are serious about making sure the American dream is more than just a fantasy special steps must be taken to slow the growth of new home prices in low- and mid-income neighborhoods across the country. Additionally, the federal gov ernment must work with state and local governments to create afford able, mixed income neighborhoods. OFFICE • RETAIL Martin Located Luther in the •£ Heart King o f El’ Corridor Portland For More Details Contact: Chuck or Mark Washington 503-288-1897 2 Spaces Available Joyce Washington Plaza — I close the gap between the Ameri can dream and the reality of flat lining salaries and skyrocketing home prices. Until home ownership is a real’possibility for all citizens, America is offering no more than a pipe dream. Judge Greg Mathis is chairman o f the Rainbow PUSH-Excel Board and a national board member o f the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. forcem ent agencies that con tinue to use racial profiling accountable. This legislation is needed to stop this insidious practice and to help begin to restore the confidence of communities of color in law enforcement. The April study by the Jus tice Department showed that white, black and Latino drivers were stopped at about the same rate, nearly nine percent. What happened once they were stopped was dramatically dif ferent depending on race and ethnicity. Police searched black driv ers or their vehicles 10.2 per Here is a public official who attempted to shed light on important statistics that support earlier NAACP findings. -B m c e S . Gordon The Justice D epartm ent study was ordered by Con gress, but its findings were bur ied. According to the New York Tim es, Lawrence A. Greenfeld, former director of the Bureau of Justice Statis tics, was demoted after he re fused to d elete data that showed racial profiling in traf fic stops. The statistics were from 80,000 interviews con ducted in 2002. The NAACP is calling on Congress to pass the End Ra cial Profiling Act o f 2005 to be in tro d u ced by R ep. John C onyers Jr., D -M ich. and Senators Russell D. Feingold. D-Wisc.; Arlen Specter, R- Penn.; Hillary Clinton, D-N. Y. and Jon Corzine, D-N.J. The Act would prohibit ra cial profiling; provide fund ing for the retraining of po lice officers and hold law en cent of the time; they searched Latino drivers or their vehicles 11.4 percent of the time com pared to 3.5 percent for white drivers. In addition, drivers of color were much more likely to face the threat of force and to be issued tickets, rather than simply a warning, the study found. The NAACP uncovered evi dence of racial profiling during several studies and public hear ings around the country over the past few years. One study found that approximately 72 percent of all routine traffic stops on a Northeast interstate highway occurred with Afri can Am erican drivers even though they only made up about 17 percent of the driving popu lation. Bruce S. Gordon is the president and chief execu tive officer o f the NAACP. System Rigged Against Democracy by M arc H. M oriai . Two recent developments on the impact of incarceration in America dramatized the steady, if still far too slow, turning of the wheel away from this country’s foolish addiction to prisons. In Iowa, Gov. Tom Vilsack issued executive order to re store voting rights to all Io- wans who’ve been convicted of a felony and have completed their sentences. “When y o u ’ve paid your debt to society, you need to be re-connected and re-engaged to society,” the governor said. Earlier this year, Iowa’s Great Plains neighbor, Nebraska, re pealed its law imposing a lifetime voting ban on ex-felons, replac ing it with a two-year waiting period after release. The states’ actions exemplify the revamping of these laws throughout the country which, by depriving ex-felons of their right to vote after they’ve served their sentences violates two fun damental notions of American society: the ideas that the right to vote belongs to all law-abiding citizens, and that once persons convicted of crime have served their sentences, they’ve paid their debts to society. Given the hugely dispropor tionate number of incarcerated African- and Latino-Americans, there is not surprisingly a stun ning and worrisome racial ele ment to the felony disenfran chisement issue. Nationally, of the 4.7 million people ineligible to vote because of felony convictions, 1.4 mil lion are black men. In Iowa, where blacks constitute just two percent of the total population, blacks make up 19 percent of ex-felons denied the right to vote. Similar disparities can be found in most states. The second incarceration-re lated development is equally im portant. A study of ex-offend- ers’ job prospects in New York City found that white men with prison records got far more job offers than black men with prison records-and more even than black men who’d never been arrested. Both New York City’s cor rections commissioner and the chairwoman of its Commission on Human Rights labeled the report a call for action and pledged to explore ways to eliminate the racial opportunity gap for ex-offenders. These two developments un derscore the importance of the National Urban League.’s plan to launch a national commis sion examining the successes and challenges facing black boys and men. The five-year effort, to begin next year, will recommend solutions to prob lems afflicting black males in numerous fields. Certainly, a primary area of concentration will be black m ales’ negative involvement with the criminal justice sys tem (while not ignoring the fact that the negative involvement of women, particularly black women, has become increas ingly serious as well) and the extraordinary burden that im poses on A frican-A m erican families and communities. That burden and the growing movement to reform felony-dis enfranchisement laws is dramatic evidence that if we ignore the need to equip ex-offenders with two fundamental rights of a de- mocracy-the vote and a job- it’s at their peril and ours. Marc H. Moriai is president and chief executive officer of the National Urban League.